McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Partnership in Regenerative Medicine
Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine

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Yoshiki Sawa, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor, Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine.

Dr. Sawa earned his M.D. from Osaka University Medical School, served as an intern in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, and in 1987 earned a Ph.D. He has served as a Research and clinical fellow at Max-Planck Institute in Germany supported by Humboldt Scholarship (1989-1991).

In 1992 he was appointed as an Assistant Professor, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Osaka University Medical School, and he is Professor and Chief, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, as well as the Director, Medical Center for Translational Research in Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine.

The Medical Center for Translational Research, Osaka University Hospital is a translational research center that was established in 2002 to support various translational researches including cell and gene therapy, which had been conducted in the Osaka University Hospital. This center verifies the feasibility of potential candidates for future treatments, such as cell therapy and gene therapy, in clinical settings.

The center has 5 divisions. The division of inspection and evaluation, security and information management, research and development, academia-industrial collaboration, and of translational medical practice, and thus covers a series of processes from pre-clinical research and development, clinical trials, to industrialization.

The center has a cell processing center and P2 facilities in the clinical research zone, as well as a operating room equipped with surgical navigation systems and robotics instruments in the medical practice zone. This center manages several research projects of regenerative medicine, disease analysis, advanced image analysis, and nano-biotechnology. All translational research projects are performed based on the control of good manufacturing practice (GMP) of biomaterials and of good clinical practice (GCP) of clinical trials.

Dr. Sawa’s clinical focus includes treatment of failing hearts using surgical approaches including transplantation, artificial organs, gene therapy and myocardial regeneration therapy. His research interests include Cardiovascular Surgery, Heart Transplantation, Artificial Organs, Gene Therapy and, Regeneration Therapy. Currently, the following translational research projects are in progress:

Treatment of osteoarticular diseases using cultured autologous bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells
Optic nerve protection by electrical stimulation of cornea to ischemic optic nerve diseases
Myocardial regeneration therapy by autologous stem cell transplantation
Transplantation of cultured epithelial sheet to intractable corneal and conjunctival diseases
Immunotherapy of cancer with dendritic cells
Treatment of deafferentation pain by per-cranial magnetic stimulation
Cell therapy using adipose tissue-derived stem cells are under development with the expectation that clinical applications will be available within a few years.

For additional information, please see www.hp-mctr.med.osaka-u.ac.jp.

Dr. Alan J. Russell is Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He also serves as University Professor of Surgery and has secondary appointments in the departments of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Rehabilitation Sciences & Technology. Additionally, Dr. Russell is the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) and Director of the National Tissue Engineering Center.

Dr. Russell received his baccalaureate degree in Biochemistry and Applied Molecular Biology from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (United Kingdom) in 1984, and his doctorate in Biological Chemistry from Imperial College, the University of London, in 1987.

After spending two years (1987 - 1989) as a NATO Research Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Klibanov at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Russell joined the University of Pittsburgh as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering. In 1995, he became Nikolas DeCecco Professor and was Chairman of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering until 2001. In 1999, Dr. Russell co-founded a now successful biotechnology company, Agentase LLC.

Within the Russell Laboratories, research has focused on the symbiotic interface between enzymes and materials, specifically biotechnological chemical weapon defense; the study of proteins in extreme environments; biocatalytic polymer synthesis; and the development of rational approaches to biomaterial syntheses for tissue engineering. His seminal work has been performed in the area of the decontamination of chemical weapons using enzymes. Collaborating with U.S. Army scientists, these approaches are expanding the number of possible defenses against chemical weapons.

Under the direction of Dr. Russell, the mission of the PTEI is to propel Pittsburgh and the Southwestern Pennsylvania region to preeminence in tissue engineering through support of university-based research and education, and by pairing tissue engineering scientists with technology transfer opportunities to help them build our regional biotechnology enterprise. PTEI accomplishes its goals through a vision-driven, needs-based strategy consisting of: seed grant funding of research with clear potential commercial impact; sponsorship and vertical integration of educational programs directed at a wide range of experience levels; facilitating access to innovative technology transfer systems; and global dissemination of tissue engineering-related information via the internet and other media.